Though summer is in full swing and I have a fabulous new job (read about it under posts tagged "artworks") to keep me busy, the even newer job that awaits me in mid-August is always creeping up to my most frontal lobes daily.  Last week I signed on as an art teacher for the upcoming school year at Scott High School here in Kentucky, and I'll be teaching drawing, painting, and Photoshop classes.  In my planning, I'm trying to focus on one course at a time, and right now, I'm knee-deep in drawing.  I'm trying to gather up examples of some of the most exciting, avant-garde, envelope-pushing, interesting drawing work out there in hopes of inspiring my future students.

I can thank regretsy (where I like to go for the occasional satisfying serving of snark) for this lovely discovery: artist Melanie Bilenker:

These teensy, elegant line drawings are - get this - rendered in the artist's own hair.  This romantic idea stems from the Victorian tradition of keeping hair in a locket as a reminder of a lost loved one, and the nostalgic feeling is further reinforced by the everyday moments Bilenker captures in her drawings.

What I love about her work is not only the intimacy of the size (small work has always really appealed to me), but in that it challenges the conventional notion of what a drawing really is.  This is something I'd really like my students to know: that drawing isn't necessarily simply pencil on paper - it can be done with earth, light, water... almost any material you can think of. 

Even your own hair.

Which is kind of gross.

But still awesome.

I felt like I hit the jackpot this morning, while during a fiber studio critique, I did a random web search for "German textile design" and up popped Elisa Strozyk.  She uses a deconstructive process to make a sort of half-breed wood fiber, existing somewhere between malleable & unyielding,  This sort of juxtaposition seems to be the backbone to the work: the individual pieces of wood are geometric, yet come together to achieve soft, organic forms. Unexpected, sophisticated, and absolutely inspired.

Check out her site, and prepare to be utterly amazed.